Fairbanks & North Pole

 So my blog for this week got deleted!  This I will just add that I had a great time on our trip!  As usual Gary and the sisters seem to be most alike and I relate to the husbands! That is how all our friends have ever been I think!  So glad we have this association!  We laugh alot with all of them and sometimes that is the best medicine!!  We have a lot in common and that is interesting when three are converts and come from all over!  Our link is the gospel and our desire to serve!   Conference was certainly a highlight of our trip!  Watching it in a cozy cabin with good friends was delightful!  Now listening to it over and over can help me remember!

We did also go to the museum of the North at the university! Got our only glimps of a grizzly and a polar bear.  

We continue to love being here!  Love this call! We are meeting with bishops tonight and we might be bribing them with Cinnamon rolls!  Maybe not bribing but thanking!  We do have a wonderful army of saints here .77$

Every day when we wake up, I am amazed at something new. Alaska continues to deliver unique and wondrous things. And it’s not always the beautiful world around us but just something different that is going on that we are involved with. For example, this morning I took Carolee to her to her temple shift and we drove on snowpack roads from a small overnight storm.  At the temple, they have installed a trailer to serve as a small visitor center. Behind it where the stakes center was, is a flat piece of ground where they will start digging the foundation hole this week. There was a hoe that was tearing down some large quake or birch trees that were apparently in the way of the construction vehicles. This thing was moving these huge trees like they were toothpicks! i’m not sure if in the next five months, we will see walls go up at the Temple site, but it’s been fun too. See how things progress. This will be an interesting situation because it will most likely be the only time ever there will be two dedicated temples, on the same lot! I think, watching him tear down a temple will be much harder to watch, and tearing down a stake center.

We had zone conference this week and our president combines the three zones here in Anchorage. So there are about 75 missionaries, plus the service missionaries involved in the zone conference.

During the last session, President Larsen called me out of the congregation to speak & to give a report on how the singles ward and the Institute were doing.  It’s like I’ve had to tell myself over and over if after 70 years, I’m not ready to speak or give a lesson without warning, on any topic, then I never will be.  Carolee was in helping prepare the meal for the missionaries so she wasn’t there. I have a feeling had she been there, she may have been the one called on to speak. So I think she dodged a bullet.🙂‍↕️(this is a new emoji nodding its head in agreement. ) (🙂‍↔️ not agreeing-with a smile…learning to disagree without being contentious 🙂‍↕️)

On Friday morning, we headed out on a weekend getaway with our good friends, Elder and Sister Kuerth and Elder and Sister Badger. We took two cars so the Badgers bounced back-and-forth between cars on the journey. I’m sure Carolee will fill us in on the details of what we did, so I will hit some highlights.

We left Anchorage on a blizzard and it was a little hairy until we got to a little town outside called Willow, which is the official starting place of the Iditarod doc race. The snow stopped and the sky is cleared off somewhat, and it was just partly cloudy . It was perfect because we were just coming up to where we could see Mount Denali. 

Denali is the highest mountain in North America at 20,310 feet but what makes it so remarkable and so huge is that it rises from 2000 feet to 20,000 feet. That means you see 18,000 feet of mountain. That is the largest rise elevation of any mountain in the world. So for example in Kaysville, we were about 4500 feet downtown. Francis Peak was about 9,500 feet above sea level. That means from our vantage point in the valid, we could see about 5,000 feet of mountain, which is pretty impressive. Timpanogos is 7,000 ft above American Fork.

So Denali is over 3 1/2 times taller than Francis Peak!!

Denali Peak is visible on a very clear day from Anchorage. We haven’t seen it on two or three different occasions. Denali is 145 miles as the crow flies from Anchorage. So to put that in perspective if you stood on the back deck of our house in Kaysville and looked south, the peak would be in Fillmore! Or if you looked north, the mountain would be in Blackfoot Idaho!! And you could still see it above the horizon.  This Mountain is massive.!!  Pictures just don’t do it justice, but they do remind me of its majesty. If it’s not on your bucket list, I would recommend putting it there.

Next month, we are hoping to get even closer by taking an excursion into the park on the bus. On our way up to Fairbanks the sky cleared fairly well, but there was clouds at the summit, but on the way back, the summit was clear and it was spectacular. And the mountains that surround , Denali are so amazing by themselves that it’s hard to comprehend. It’s like overloading of the senses. There’s a series of mountains that looks a lot like the Tetons that are impressive too. The other thing that was so awesome was that a winter storm had blanketed the state as I mentioned the night before, and so the mountains were just totally blanketed with new frosting!

We drove through a mountain pass that peaked out at 2500 feet and dropped into Fairbanks, which is about 750 feet elevation above sea level. Fairbanks city how about 35,000+ the student at University of Alaska/Fairbanks. We stayed in a cabin high above Fairbanks, where we could see the lights of the city on one side and hoped to be able to see the northern lights with the darkness of our location. It’s kind of wild sensation of having it stay light longer, which I think is taking a bigger adjustment than, the darkness was. When we went out on the balcony at 10:30 PM, it was still fairly light. We were able to see some faint lights Friday night but it was midnight before I was able to get any pictures. Saturday it was cloudy all evening but Sunday night I stayed up late and then got back up at 2 AM and took pictures for over an hour. There are any of our group who are as motivated as I am to experience everything I possibly can. But they are very willing for me to share their pictures. We laugh about them saying that they will give me credit for taking the pictures on their blogs or letters to family, but I know better ha ha.

Going to North Pole an actual city, we had a lot of fun as they play on Santa Claus all over. Even the street lights were striped like candy canes

We were able to listen to conference live on Saturday morning and Sunday sessions, and caught the other ones later. What an awesome conference it was. In one way it felt sad, because it’s a real possibility that the top 4 Leaders of the church may not , be with us next conference. If there is ever any question that President Nelson holds the keys of the gathering of Israel, in my humble opinion, I have no doubt as we watch the Earth being filled with temples.  What a time to be alive! One of the best things about this trip to Fairbanks was being in the company of friends where we were having very constructive, deep and meaningful conversations about conference and what was taught.

We also went out and saw the Alaska pipeline that goes from the north slope to Valdez. A pretty impressive engineering feat.

We also got to have breakfast on Monday with some sister missionaries who served here in the YSA, who are just sweet, sweet energetic committed missionaries. 

And that continues to be an ongoing miracle to me, is to watch these young people as missionaries. And they talked to the MTC Elder Bednar mentioned that they had done a survey of recent converts to try to determine the effectiveness of the teaching all the young missionaries . He said that the vast majority of them had no idea what they were talking about until the third or fourth lesson. It was all so foreign to them, talking about angels and prophets and priesthood and visions, etc.. they were then ask why they continued inviting them back and listening. Their response was, because of the spirit at these young people had with them and the enthusiasm they had for what they were trying to do. And eventually, they understood more & felt the spirit testifying that it was true. So,  Elder Bednar said, just keep trying your hardest, do your best,  be obedient and things will work out.  And that this is what happens and it’s a miracle.

On the way home, we were able to connect with another senior couple and go to dinner with them at red Robin in Wasilla. By the time we got home at 9:30pm, we were pretty tired.

Then on Tuesday morning, we started right back up to our routine and dealing with the issues of our missionary work and living life.

Things like our hot water heater/ boiler was leaking out of the pressure relief valve.

It was dripping down a copper pipe onto a wall and onto the garage floor. A thing is it was a steady stream and it was 160° water. When we first discovered it was one day we went into our garage and it was a cloud of steam in there.  We had to leave the garage door open a bit until we got a plumber here. He came today and fixed it. Now we just need to fix the mold in the sheet rock.

And I got a request to substitute seminary next week for the teacher who is going in for a heart procedure. At least it’s release time and during the day, so no early morning I hate mornings! I’m glad there is no 6:30 AM rule for senior missionaries to be out of bed .

Although it is slow, we are making headway in our Institute attendance and in finding YSA’s who have been lost. It’s a great feeling too see a young person connect and feel that belonging again. The light that comes back into them is amazing.

I think conference in the Mission Field is a wonderful time, because of where our time and energy is focused. And what is somewhat sad is the fact that we won’t be in Alaska for next conference in October. 

Being in the Lords service full-time has been a tremendous blessing for us and our family. Conference strengthens my testimony of living prophets and apostles, and the gospel of Jesus Christ gives me peace going forward in this troublesome world.

We love you all and pray for you.